The invention relates generally to medical devices and particularly to apparatuses and methods associated with a range of image guided medical procedures for detecting, sampling, staging and/or treating target tissues in the lungs of a patient.
Image guided surgery (IGS), also known as image guided intervention (IGI), enhances a physician's ability to locate instruments within anatomy during a medical procedure. IGS can include 2-dimensional (2D), 3-dimensional (3D), and 4-dimensional (4D) applications. The fourth dimension of IGS can include multiple parameters either individually or together such as time, motion, electrical signals, pressure, airflow, blood flow, respiration, heartbeat, and other patient measured parameters.
Although significant improvements have been made in these fields, a need remains for improved medical devices and procedures for visualizing, accessing, locating, real-time confirming while sampling and manipulating a target tissue.